THREATS AND RESPONSES: MEDICAL CORPS; In Kuwait, a Dentist From Queens Misses the Subway and the Met

The 27-year-old dentist from Queens, who is moving to a front-line medical unit, said she knew her life would be unpredictable six years ago when she graduated from Fordham University and signed on to a government program in which the military pays tuition and most other costs of medical training in exchange for four years of active service.

Like dozens of other military doctors moving into Iraq who received their medical training in exchange for military service -- the exact number is unclear -- Captain Brito accepts her situation with aplomb, with some humor and, of course, plenty of nerves.

''Who wouldn't be nervous?'' said Captain Brito, who entered the Army as a captain in July, in Germany, began practicing and was transferred to Kuwait several weeks ago. She is about to move into Iraq with her unit, the 561st Medical Company, of V Corps, based near Nuremburg, Germany. The unit is comprised mostly of dentists who will become physicians for what she called ''triage work,'' assistance to seriously wounded soldiers.

Captain Brito, whose family lives in Woodside, Queens, sat in line the other morning in the already baking desert sun, from 6:15 to 8:30, to make a call to her boyfriend, Paul Keller, an engineer based for three years in Guangzhou, China. The two met as next-door neighbors in Cleveland, Ohio, where Captain Brito took her dental training at Case Western Reserve University. The two spent a week together in February, and Captain Brito said they plan to see each other in the summer.

''Sure, this makes me uneasy,'' said Captain Brito, who has three years of active duty remaining. ''Especially just graduating from dental school. But I can't let that affect me. Just go with the flow. You have to go with the flow in the Army. I'm a New York girl. New York girls have got to be flexible.'' She laughed.

Captain Brito, who said she wants to practice dentistry in Queens, said the Army was, of course, an adjustment. She was reluctant to go into too many details about being a woman in the military. ''It's difficult -- definitely the army is male dominated in terms of the demographic,'' she said. ''It's the Army. Guys like to get down and dirty. Guys like to do that more. As a female, I'm O.K. with that.''

Given the fact that she is in the Army, and in the middle of the desert in grimy circumstances, Captain Brito said she was embarrassed to admit that she missed getting her hair and nails done once a week. ''That fits too much in the female stereotype, doesn't it?'' she said with a shrug.

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Once in the barracks reserved for women, she said, the occupants behave less guardedly. ''This is going to sound terrible, given the current circumstances,'' she said, ''but we do each other's hair, keep our nails and feet clean, and it's always, 'can I borrow your nail polish remover, can I borrow your mirror, can I borrow your tweezers?' ''

''Actually, the Army tries to look out for its females,'' she said. ''They provide the separate showers, the separates. The PX has the supplies I need. In that way, I don't really feel any bias.''

As a New Yorker, Captain Brito said, she had more trouble adjusting to Cleveland, where she went to medical school, than to Kuwait, where she found extraordinary diversity among officers and enlisted people.

Captain Brito attended Roman Catholic schools in Queens before going to Fordham. She said she missed New York with a fervor -- ''just picking up The Village Voice and seeing what's going on and doing it.''

''I miss going to the Angelika in Soho because I love those kinds of independent movies, and there's Ray's, an Italian restaurant in Little Italy that I miss,'' she said. ''I love to dance -- there's the Copacobana on 57th Street, and Gonzalez and Gonzalez, a Mexican restaurant with a dance floor in Soho. I miss the museums -- I used to go to the Met and just walk and walk.''

''I actually miss the subway,'' she said.

Captain Brito said, she has not practiced any dentistry, partly because dental equipment has not arrived but mostly because the dentists are taking medical as well as military training for the war. ''You meet some really good people, some great people,'' she said quietly. ''That may sound bogus, but it's true. You expect people to be kicking and complaining, and they're not.''

She gazed around the sweltering camp. ''I just hope everyone makes it,'' she said quietly.

Correction: March 21, 2003, Friday Three articles yesterday about United States soldiers in Kuwait carried incorrect datelines. The three -- the Tours of Duty profile about an intelligence analyst, Col. Steven Boltz; an article about a dentist, Capt. Cynthia V. Brito; and an article about the mood among soldiers in V Corps -- were written from Camp Virginia, the V Corps headquarters, not from Camp New Jersey, base of the 101st Airborne Division.